Fox Uses YouTube Clip In Family Guy Episode, Fires Off DMCA Request To Have It Removed Afterwards

Wow. Where to begin with this one? There are few people out there that would disagree that the copyright and trademark system in the US is less-than-ideal. All too often, content from sites like YouTube will be pulled for no reason, or at least for no good reason. One of the most absurd examples I’ve heard of is when Sony DMCA’d a creative commons movie, one that wasn’t just free, but open source, built with the 3D design tool Blender.

Well, as ridiculous as that story is, Fox is here to one-up it. How it does that is equally baffling: it pulled a gaming clip from YouTube, without permission, used it in a Family Guy episode, and then, through either an automated or manual process, issued a DMCA request to YouTube to have the original clip removed.

The clip in question was of a Nintendo Entertainment System title called Double Dribble, which showed how it was possible to pull off a successful 3-pointer whenever the player’s throw was timed right. A recent Family Guy episode shows Peter Griffin and his three compadres pulling off the same trick on their TV. A hilarious scene – unless you’re the person who Fox is screwing.

To give Fox some semblance of an excuse, chances are that no real person was behind this take-down. YouTube’s content ID systems are so advanced that they can even detect when an unreleased song is uploaded to the service. Even so, this highlights what’s so blatantly broken about this system. If someone’s legitimate video gets taken down for no reason by a bot, then the system should be reevaluated. This kind of thing might not happen that often, but should we really be content with it happening at all?